Catching my balance.

March 2005

28 March 2005

The original 1972 production,
not the remake. Certainly an interesting time-capsule view of world
perception, Soviet-style, circa 1971- the incredibly long interlude in
which Berton drives through the "futuristic" city is pretty telling.
The scene was shot in Japan and all the little Toyotas and Datsuns
zipping through concrete tunnels made me think of my 1970s Boston
childhood when we had a Datsun.

Here's the setup: The
Soviet government sent a mission to Solaris decades before. There is a
space station hovering over the planet's sea. Weird things happened,
and it is all hush-hush. Most of the people who were living on the
space station have come home. Three scientists remain, but they seem to
be unraveling. The government sends in Kris Kelvin, a psychologist, to
find out what is going on. Upon arrival he discovers that one of the
scientists has killed himself after being plagued by some sort of
apparition. The remaining two scientists are also plagued by
apparitions, and it is believed that these "guests," as they call them,
are a product of Solaris' ocean. Soon after arriving Kelvin encounters
his long-dead wife, a woman who killed herself more than a decade
earlier in response to his lack of love for her. In the ensuing decade
he has grown to love her, and now that he has her back, he seeks to
make amends.

The film poses some interesting questions about
the nature of existence and the definition of humanity. Is the Hari on
the station human? She is more than a figment of Kris' imagination- the
others see her, she has a phyisical presence- but she does not possess
many of the characteristics of humanity. She is immortal, she kills
herself over and over and always comes back. Is she a wish? Or is she a
lingering guilt?

But it took three nights for me to get all the way through the three + hour film because most of it is so boring.
Kris is so emotionally detatched that it is impossible for the audience
to become truly interested in his story. Why should I care how he deals
with his guilt? Many of the sequences are incredibly, and seemingly
pointlessly, long. The audience spends five full minutes riding
wordlessly in the car with Berton- who, mind you, we will never see again-
and yet it takes about thirty seconds of celluloid for Kris in his
leather & mesh, uh, "spacesuit" to get to Solaris. Best comment
from the film profs who do the DVD commentary was in reference to a
scene late in the film where Tarkovsky suddenly closes in on Kris' ear.
We looked at each other like WTF is this with the ear? The commentary?
"This closeup of Kelvin's ear defies interpretation."

No kidding.

The
opening scenes of the grasses flowing in the river and of the natural
world are beautiful enough to almost make it worth renting the DVD. I
understand that these kinds of scenes are common in Trakovsky, so I'm
willing to give his other work a try. Also, Solaris works fine as a
natural seditive. Watch with a cup of camomille tea and you'll be out
like a light.

Oddly,
the DVD is not the third installment in its entirety, but is actually
only 18% of it. I haven't seen the entire third installment (though I
did see the first two installments), but the run time is supposed to be
three + hours, and this was 31 minutes. Perhaps this was the stuff that
most closely resembled a narrative?

Watching The Order- the
bit of Cremaster 3 that appears on the video- doesn't really give much
of a narrative, except maybe something along the lines of zombie
bagpiper climbs guggenheim then comes down, muted hijinx ensue. There
is a larger narrative at play- which you can check out on the Cremaster website-
in which Richard Serra is "The Architect" and is in conflict with
Barney as "The Apprentice." They are trying to create the Chrysler
Building. Which never shows up in The Order, even though it is a
character in Cremaster 3.

Barney is the, er, "protagonist,"
and is dressed as a barefooted, bloody-mouthed, faded Hibernian. (kilt,
poofy headdress thingy, argyle stirrup socks). He climbs up the
interior corkscrew of the Guggenheim museum using the climbing wall
boards that have been installed on each level. Barney begins at the
ground level, where bathing beauties frolic in a tub of soap suds, and
makes his way up through the four additional floors. At each floor he
meets a different chracter or set of characters, alternating between
male and female (not counting the ground floor). The Rockettes dance in
formation dressed as bunnies in formal drag on the first floor; on the
second floor the hard core bands Agnostic Front and Murphy's Law
alternate (and sometimes overlap) short sets while a mosh pit swirls
around the floor between them; the third floor is inhabited by a
shape-shifting woman who alternates between a glass-legged woman in a
white gown (she is a double amputee and wears clear prosthetic legs in
this sequence) and a cheetah; the fourth is filled with white, vaguely
organically shaped sculptures; and on the top floor the sculptor
Richard Serra (aka The Architect) creates a piece using what appears to
be melted wax or wax encaustic, which he throws agains a pair of metal
plates.

The entire cycle is (from what I gather) about the
evolution of a human from undifferentiated potential to sexed
individual. I saw the first Cremaster,
in which potential floated around in two blimps while the slow evolving
occurred below in the form of synchonized movements by lines of women
in white outfits who moved across a blue astroturfed football field.
The field is the football stadium of Barney's hometown of Boise, Idaho,
where he was a high school football star. (Ah, yes, downhome America is
all about performance art. Who would have imagined Bjork and a guy from
Boise?) The second Cremaster
weaves together Gary Gilmore and his (supposed) grandfather, Harry
Houdini. At some point the fourth and fifth installments may be
released on DVD and I'll give them a look.

The films are
visually stunning and clean, tight. The interweaving in the second
installment of the images of Barney as Gilmore, Norman Mailer (who
wrote The Executioner's Song about Gilmore) as Houdini, and the
wasp-waisted, jewel-toned Baby Fay la Foe are mesmerizing. I felt
similarly captivated by Aimee Mullins in her guise as the cheetah. I
was drawn into the visuals, and in the second and third installments it
was enough along with the vague hint of narrative to keep me interested
and focused. The first one, not so much. I felt like one of the
stweardesses, waitng and waiting and waiting for the potential that
never quite materializes... except I didn't even get to filch grapes.

14 March 2005

As I was walking to the train this morning I passed a woman who was
carrying a huge clear plastic bin with a blue lid of what appeared to
be tamales. Or it was maybe ears of corn. Something tubular and vaguely
yellow in color. She was shorter than me (and I'm short)- was maybe 4
foot 9 or so- and was carrying the box on top of her head, where it
perched like it was glued in place.

03 March 2005

I went to see House of Flying Daggers the other day. What kind of film is it? It's a kung fu movie. No, wait, it's a romance. No, wait, it's a revenge saga. No, wait,... entertaining. It was an entertaining movie.

I am a big fan of Zhang Yi Mou's early work. Raise the Red Lantern is a great film, and Ju Dou is one of my favorite films. The Story of Qiu Ju is a wonderful piece of storytelling, and a great window into Chinese bureacracy, social stratification, and the rural/urban divide (which is going to really come to the fore in the next couple of decades). But I kind of lost track of Zhang at a certain point- somewhere after Qiu Ju. I never saw Shanghai Triad, and actually haven't seen any of his films until Hero, which I saw last year. (I have a lot of thoughts about Hero, but I'll wait until after I've watched it again. The short version is that I was a little stunned by the last third.)

Raise the Red Lantern and Ju Dou seemed of a kind to me. Or at least closely related. Qiu Ju was different, but there was continuity in the storytelling style. Shanghai Triad seemed so distant from the earlier work, I guess I wasn't really interested. But looking over the films that Zhang has made I'm struck both by how different many of them are from each other, and also by the way in which they seemed to be grouped into pairs. It is like watching someone in a sweet shop choosing between all the various different kinds of delights. Two chocolate creams, one nut chew, two candied fruits, an ice cream treat, three hard candy sours and a peppermint stick. This is not to say that everyone should be Merchant Ivory (dear god helps us to not be forced to sit through another period piece from the Merchant Ivory puts E.M. Forester to film franchise), but sometimes when there is so much variety it's hard to see the work as an oeuvre. The only consistencies that I can find in Zhang's work are his muses. For years (and many films) he worked almost exclusively with Gong Li. Now, for the second film in a row he has cast Zhang Ziyi. (And yes, she is the one in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) And good for him- she is wonderful in Flying Daggers, though underutilized in Hero. One wonders what he will do with her in future films that are not martial arts based (rumor has it that his next film is not going to have any kung fu action).

Flying Daggers is the second of Zhang's kung fu period. I felt a little on the fence about it after Hero, which kind of shocked me. (Kung fu! Jet Li! Beautiful scenery! Sounded great to me!) Watching it, for the first hour and a half I was ready for it to be my new favorite movie. All the color! It was mesmerizing. It reminded my of Ju Dou, with all of those lengths of cloth flapping in the wind. And then....

Flying Daggers uses some of the same visual compartmentalism, but is far less stark in dividing between camps, stories, and viewpoints than Hero. The clearest link between them is found in the Flying Dagger hide out, where each woman is wrapped in vibrant green from head to toe. But it is also echoed in the scenery- the whites, reds, oranges, and yellows of the hills and forests. Daggers is visually stunning- almost as visually stunning as Hero, but not quite as other-worldly. It reminded me more of Ju Dou- even in the tragic love story and the interplay between the two men (less so with the female character). In some ways it felt like Zhang was returning to his origins with Flying Daggers.

Except now he has the power of CG at his fingertips. There are number of spectacular scenes created with CG- the echo game, each of the attacks by the flying daggers, the bamboo trees fight scene. But the CG can't outstrip the amazing kung fu action sequences, where Zhang Ziyi's talents are highlighted. The most impressive part of the echo game sequence was not the beans- it was the contorted positions that Zhang twisted into after each "play".

And yet, at heart, this is a love story. And a tragic one, at that. Zhang Ziyi's Mei is caught between her love for Jin (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) and her obligation to Leo (played by Andy Lau). It is inevitable that this will end in disaster- foreshadowed in Mei's first appearance on the screen in her serenade of Jin. It's melodramatic, but it is engaging. It's a tragedy, and even though you know what will happen, you feel compelled to watch each moment of the denouement. (Hey, we all watch to the end of Hamlet, too).

If you love beautiful cinematography, great kung fu, or tragic romance, then this is the movie you should go see.

01 March 2005

Once a week I get to take the bus home at around ten in the evening.
Most of the folks on the bus are just people going home, and there are
always a lot of young women talking on their cell phones and for some
reason a lot of men from El Salvador. And there is also always at least
one special rider. Tonight I got to ride home with the three faces of
Eve.

Actually, she was more like the four faces of Valerie.
There was Valerie, Mary, Cathy, and her. I didn't quite catch her name.
But, uh, wow.

Generally, you know something is up when someone
boards the bus carrying a giant clear plastic garbage bag filled with
clothes. She was sending some pretty mixed signals, though, since she
also had a nice enough looking shoulder bag with a wallet sticking out
of the top next to the unopened pack of More cigarettes. She searched
for change, paid her fare, and then settled in for a long conversation.

In the course of the conversation she:

1) noted Valerie's promiscuity, notifying all riders of the bus that Valerie has two black children by different fathers2) that between the four of them they had "many death certificates"3) let everyone know that Valerie and Cathy were going to jail for all of that. You know what I'm talking about, Mary!4) the police had found out and now she and Mary were putting Valerie and Cathy under arrest5) well the counterfeiting, of course, you didn't think you'd get away with it?6) no you aren't going to get rich Cathy, don't be so stupid!7) no you have to collect it from every state and every country and you haven't done that, only I've done that! 8) well, Valerie's children are on the loose and I don't want to have anything to do with them, they're just plain nuts.

I don't know, I found the last bit kind of jarring. Somebody is definitely just plain nuts....